Jones Mills man donates photo collection to Pitt

Residents of the city of Pittsburgh's Hill District march toward downtown Pittsburgh to honor the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Sunday, April 7, 1968. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., on Thursday, April 4, 1968.
Submitted

For The Mt. Pleasant Journal

City of Pittsburgh Public Safety Director David Craig (right) speaks to a forming crowd of city residents on Sunday, April 7, 1968, three days after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assasinated in Memphis, Tenn., on Thursday, April 4, 1968. Craig suggested the crowd honor King's memory with a nonviolent, peaceful march into downtown Pittsburgh.
Submitted

Submitted

Charles R. Martin of Jones Mills, a lifelong, freelance photographer, recently donated hundreds of thousands of photographs he has shot over the past six decades to the University of Pittsburgh's Archives Service Center in Oakland. He is pictured in a photo taken in September of 1999.
Submitted

We are currently undergoing updates to our site and are working to improve your experience on all devices that you use throughout your day. If you should find a page or a story that is not working correctly, please click here.

Thank you for your patience,

TribLIVE.com Team

Freelance photographer Charles R. “Chuck” Martin stepped onto the Sixth Street Bridge in Pittsburgh's North Side on the morning of Sunday, April 7, 1968, and walked toward the city's Downtown.

Two Nikon cameras swung gently from Martin's neck as he made his way across the span above the Allegheny River.

Three days before, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., setting off fiery riots in more than 100 American cities, such as Chicago and Los Angeles, in reaction to the murder of the civil rights leader.

Martin — who at the time was a freelance photographer for the United Way — said he felt drawn to the city's downtown area by a sense that what awaited him there could be something worth capturing in images.

“I knew it was going to be a historic moment,” said Martin, 85, of Jones Mills, in regard to the National Day of Mourning declared that day in memory of King. “I didn't know if there was going to be violence or not. The police had the city cordoned off. You could not drive into the city.”

But there was Martin, on foot, winding his way between the cement-and-steel skyscrapers before turning the corner onto Centre Avenue and making his way up the hill toward the Civic Arena.

“Thousands of people were gathered there. They wanted to do something ... to voice their protest about what happened to Dr. King,” Martin said. “They met up with a wall of Pittsburgh policemen.”

It was at that moment that Martin said he knew the time had come to put his cameras to use.

The city's public safety director, David Craig, soonafter emerged to make an announcement from a bullhorn.

“He (Craig) told the crowd that, Martin Luther King would have wanted him to have a peaceful march in his honor,” Martin said.

Craig then ordered the police to step aside and the march — which was led in part by late attorney and civil rights activist Byrd R. Brown, leader of the Pittsburgh chapter of the NAACP — was permitted to proceed to the Federal building downtown, Martin said.

“It ended up being a peaceful protest. I have a great photograph of the marching crowd. It goes on for blocks.”

That image, along with more than 280 others captured on eight rolls of film, represents one of what Martin said he considers to be the crown jewels of his collection.

It is a cache of images which has reached into the hundreds of thousands over the course of his roughly six-decade career in photography.

Martin — who shot many promotional photos for various Pittsburgh-based organizations — recently donated his collection to the Archives Service Center, part of the University Library System at University of Pittsburgh.

“At this late point in my life, I was thinking it was time to do something with my photo legacy,” Martin said.

At the most recent count, that legacy is composed of 200,000 photo negatives ranging in size from 35 to 120 millimeters to 5-by-7-inch prints, said Miriam Meislik, media curator at the archives.

“We're very excited to have this collection ... it's fantastic. Chuck really does have a way of capturing the moment. He knows exactly when to take the picture,” Meislik said.

Martin's talent with a camera helped make his work the subject of a recent airing of the WQED-TV program “Horizons” hosted by Chris Moore.

Regarding Martin's photos documenting the protest which followed King's assassination, Moore said he believes society owes him a debt of gratitude.

“We all owe him thanks for that. The thing that I could not believe is that story had not been told until now,” Moore said. “Nobody ever picked up the story until Chuck called me. I'm just glad Chuck's still alive to see it be brought to light, and I was just happy to be able to tell it, and I hope it lives on for a long time.”

Meislik said the center will continue cataloging Martin's photos with the goal of compiling them for a to-be-determined exhibit.

“We're formulating a plan for that right now,” Meislik said. “Let's just say there are a lot of photographs in this collection which we want to make accessible to those who would conduct research with them.”

In addition to Martin's protest photos, other images he donated include his work with the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children and Boy Scouts of America, along with many scenic shots of Pittsburgh and intimate images of former First Lady Barbara Bush, fashion mogul Bill Blass, Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steeler Franco Harris and the late Sen. John Heinz.

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our
Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent
via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.